Dr. Raul Bodas holds a B.Sc. and a Ph.D. title in Veterinary Science, specialty Animal Production from the University of León (Spain). He spent one year as a PostDoc at the Division of Farm Animal Science (University of Bristol, UK). He worked as a lecturer for the University of Valladolid (Spain) and as a researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Currently, he is a researcher in the Livestock Research Area with the Agrarian Technological Institute of Castille and Leon (ITACyL, Spain). He is a member of the Spanish Society for the Study of Sheep and Goats (SEOC), the Interprofessional Association for Agricultural Development (AIDA), the American Society of Animal Science (ASAS), and the European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP).

Raul’s fields of expertise and interest are the interaction between ruminant feeding and production systems and their impact on product quality (meat, milk), environmental impact, efficient use of resources and animal welfare.

He has also been involved in many National and European public funded projects, contracts with enterprises or the administration. Raul is the co-author of around 60 JCR scientific papers, 25 peer-reviewed papers, 3 book chapters, 30 informative papers and more than 60 communications to national and international conferences. He has tutored 5 final degree projects, 3 MSc and 1 Ph.D. thesis. He also likes to collaborate in the review of scientific papers, projects, and proposals whenever his workload and editing duties allow.

Dr. Sylvie Giger-Reverdin is working as a senior scientist for the French Research Institute in Agriculture Science (INRA), in the INRA-AgroParisTech Research Unit MoSAR (Systemic Modelling Applied to Ruminants), Paris, France. She graduated in Agricultural Science from the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (France), with specialization in Sciences and Engineering in Animal Science, Nutrition option and received a Master of Science in Nutrition and Feeding of domestic animals from the Paris VI University (France) in 1977. She obtained a Ph.D. in Agricultural Science from the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (France), with her dissertation titled “Influence of the composition of the concentrate on the nutritive value of diets fed to dairy ruminants.”

Her main field of research concerns the nutrition and feeding of ruminants bred in intensive conditions, especially dairy goats, used as a model for dairy cattle.

She has been especially involved in research on the nutritive value of concentrates, on the nutritive requirements of goats and on ruminal metabolism. For a couple of years, she has focussed on the effects of feeding behavior, and especially on the relationships between acidosis, feeding behavior and animal welfare in dairy goats.

Livestock are critical for sustainable development yet often overlooked. The world’s cows, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry and other farm animals are the mainstay of livelihoods across the developing world. And the energy and nutrient-dense milk, meat and eggs these animals produce provide hundreds of millions of families in the world’s poorer countries with basic livelihoods, incomes, food and nutrition.

​Dairy has intertwined with human society since the beginning of civilization. It evolves from art in ancient society to science in the modern world. Its roles in nutrition and health are underscored by the continuous increase in global consumption. Milk production increased by almost 50% in just the past quarter century alone. Population growth, income rise, nutritional awareness, and science and technology advancement contributed to a continuous trend of increased milk production and consumption globally. With a fourfold increase in milk production per cow since the 1940s, the contemporary dairy industry produces more milk with fewer cows, and consumes less feed and water per liter of milk produced. The dairy sector is diversified, as people from a wider geographical distribution are consuming milk, from cattle to species such as buffalo, goat, sheep, and camel. The dairy industry continues to experience structural changes that impact society, economy, and environment. Organic dairy emerged in the 1990s as consumers increasingly began viewing it as an appropriate way of both farming and rural living. Animal welfare, environmental preservation, product safety, and health benefit are important considerations in consuming and producing organic dairy products. Large dairy operations have encountered many environmental issues related to elevated greenhouse gas emissions. Dairy cattle are second only to beef cattle as the largest livestock contributors in methane emission. Disparity in greenhouse gas emissions per dairy animal among geographical regions can be attributed to production efficiency. Although a number of scientific advancements have implications in the inhibition of methanogenesis, improvements in production efficiency through feeding, nutrition, genetic selection, and management remain promising for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from dairy animals. This article describes the trends in milk production and consumption, the debates over the role of milk in human nutrition, the global outlook of organic dairy, the abatement of greenhouse gas emissions from dairy animals, as well as scientific and technological developments in nutrition, genetics, reproduction, and management in the dairy sector.